美國
核能安全監督團體最近提出警訊，指核能業者不當施壓，要求聯邦主管機關加速做出「用過核燃料」環評結論──此項環評是由法院下令進行的，目標是堆置在全美各核子反應爐的用過核燃料。
「核能業者所組成的核能研究所，正強力催促核能管理委員會（NRC）早點做出報告，要求他們根據一些『不堪用』的證據──甚至是該機構早已呈報遺失的機密報告，來做出法院要求執行的長期堆置核廢料環評結論。」24個全國性與在地團體15日聯合提出上述警告。
環保團體出示文件指出，核能業者聲稱核NRC「之前已經針對用過核燃料原地堆放的風險與其環境衝擊，蒐集了許多技術研究報告，足夠NRC評估用過燃料池起火的可能性和後果。」
然而，環保團體指出，事實上十多年來並沒有任何新的相關公開研究，而舊有的研究報告也沒有任何一篇能符合環境影響評估報告的需要。
此外，「NRC關於此議題的資訊不是列為機密，就是不對公眾揭露，更糟的是，根據NRC向國會審計總處（現改制為政府責任總署）的陳述，那些機密資料已經遺失。」
環保團體在一份公開於網路上的聲名中提出警告：核能研究所企圖「把評估時程壓縮到兩年以內的時間，」此舉無疑是將利益擺在第一位，罔顧公眾的安全，而且也「藐視」美國聯邦上訴法院要NRC廢止舊版《核廢料信任法規》（Waste Confidence Rule）、並作一份新的核廢料長期儲存環境影響評估報告的命令。
用過核燃料的高危險性會持續相當長的一段時間，它具有長半衰期的放射性物質，若外漏的話將會嚴重污染環境且嚴重傷害人類健康。
能源與環境研究所所長Arjun Makhijani博士表示，「受到政治因素影響而沒有照法院要求提出確實的分析資料，這樣的環評報告，不會是一份科學性的環評報告。」
Makhijani博士指出，「NRC需要確實的數據資料來做成一份完整的環評報告，核能研究所不能把育加山（Yucca Mountain）核廢料儲存場環評報告中的數據拿來當作新報告的研究數據，因為那些數據故意且已被證實低估了對環境的影響。」
育加山核廢料儲藏場，是當初美國政府計畫將用過核燃料及其它高階核廢料存放在深層地質中避免其外洩的一項開發案，但此案在2010年內華達州參議員及參議院多數黨領袖Harry Reid刪減預算後中止。
美國政府目前未有進一步計畫建立新的深層地質核廢料長期儲存場。
Nuclear watchdog groups warn the the nuclear industry is rushing regulators tasked with a new court-ordered environmental impact statement for the spent nuclear fuel piling up at reactor sites across the country.
"The nuclear industry association – the Nuclear Energy Institute – is pushing so hard to get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a hurry-up version of a court-ordered environmental impact statement on the long-term storage of nuclear waste that it is even pressuring the federal agency to rely on such unsatisfactory 'evidence' as secret reports that the agency has reported as being lost," 24 national and grassroots environment groups warned in a joint statement Tuesday.
In its filing, the Nuclear Energy Institute claims that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "has previously compiled numerous technical studies regarding the risks and environmental impacts of onsite spent fuel storage that it can rely on in assessing both the probabilities and consequences of spent fuel pool fires."
However, say the groups, the truth is that there has been no such new public study undertaken in more than a decade and none of the available old studies meets the requirements for an environmental impact statement.
Also, "whatever new information the Commission has on the topic is either classified or otherwise withheld from public disclosure and, to make things even worse, the classified studies have gone missing, according to a NRC statement to the General Accountability Office," the groups said.
In comments available online, the groups warn that, in seeking a "slapdash report carried out on a truncated two-year timeline," Nuclear Energy Institute is placing the industry's economic agenda ahead of public safety and also "flouting" the U.S. Court of Appeals order that forced the NRC to scrap its previous Waste Confidence Rule and to compile a fresh EIS about long-term nuclear reactor waste storage issues.
Spent nuclear fuel remains highly dangerous for long periods of time. It has long-lived radioactive materials in it that can seriously contaminate the environment and harm public health if released.
Arjun Makhijani , PhD, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, said, "Politically motivated approaches to the EIS without the data to actually analyze the impacts required to be estimated by the court's order will result in a scientifically unacceptable EIS."
"The NRC just doesn't have the data at present to do an EIS and needs to gather it," Dr. Makhijani said. "The NEI is quite wrong to say that the Yucca Mountain EIS provides many of the needed answers. It does not because, among other things, it deliberately and admittedly underestimated the impacts."
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was to be a deep geological repository storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other high level radioactive waste, until the project was defunded by Nevada Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010.
The United States now has no plan for another long-term geological repository for spent nuclear fuel.
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